At work we have a program called the People Strategy to improve the culture here at work. One of my friends who is a General Manager volunteered for one of these work streams and asked if she could videotape me answering a couple questions. I told her if she could do it later in the day so I could collect me thoughts. Below is pretty much what I said. I learned today that it has made the rounds of the work streams as one of the best video out there. I heard they side it had the right type emotion to it. Getting the point across without being negative. I was hoping it would be shown in the Town Hall meeting that is coming up and it looks like it will be. I just hope I dont look too fat in it (vanity rearing its ugly head).I cant wait until the 29th!

What does this strategy mean to you:

Great People Managers are open, candid, and supportive of employees.

This priority of the strategy is to create trust and eliminate any fear or misunderstanding between managers and other employees.

First of all I would add the word ALL to the mission statement/strategy. There are people that managers are open candid and supportive to but they are usually the Golden Children.

What does it mean to me? Barriers are broken. Hierarchy is in a way eliminated. The people in the department are considered part of a family not as territory or pawns.

What does a great manager look like to you?

Someone who has a career development strategy for all their employees. Someone who makes a point to walk to a person’s desk, cube, lab to let them know when they did a good job or heard they did a good job, not just tell them when they pass them in the hallway.

I think good managers in the company are the ones who started at the low end of the totem poll. I believe it is because they know what it was like to be at that end. They look to all levels of the organization not just the top down.

As you think about creating better managers at Clorox, what would you like to see happen?

Open communication.

If a manager sees something they don’t like, ie people talking in the hallway too often, people being loud etc. talk to the group directly not make phone calls down the totem poll to have a supervisor tell the person. This only aggravates the employees, what if they were talking about work? What if they were brainstorming a problem? The manager did not care to find out.

360/180? Feedback. No one asks us how we feel about our manager, or whether we think they are doing a good job. There have been years where I had never been asked input on my supervisor.

Teach managers to be people people.

In Japan some companies had a room with straw effigies of the managers/supervisors of the company. Employees were able to check out a sword and request a certain effigy. I cant remember if they had to give the reason or not. At the end of the month or quarter the CEO or owner of the company looked over the effigies and then asked managers/supervisors with the effigies with the most damage what they were doing wrong, or why there effigies were the way they were. This way the upper management knew which departments/people were not happy. And the CEO/owner made sure the manager/supervisor know that they did not want to see the effigy that way again and if they did there would be trouble.

What is the most important issue this strategy should work to address?

Trust. Cross communication with all levels of the organization. Revamp their IMS skills.